


Hidden World

by Shaele



Series: Colors of My World [2]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Out of Character, Synesthesia, Synesthesia!Yata
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6978547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaele/pseuds/Shaele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories based on another story, <i>Hidden Colors</i>.</p><p>Yata Misaki never grew up to be the Wild Crow he always dreamed he would be. Instead, he lived a comfortable and peaceful life with his one and only (boy)friend, Fushimi Saruhiko. A victim of bullying at an early age, Misaki grew to be very timid and wary of people, and began using art as an outlet for his emotions. He doesn't see the world the way most people do - sounds turn to colors in his head in a way that allows him to see our world tinged with technicolor, and each individual has their own set of colors for their own tones of voice.<br/>His favorite sound of all? Saruhiko's. He knows Saruhiko's voice well enough to be able to describe his emotions through them, and it's never a bad day when Misaki sees his purple fill his mind.</p><p>Join Yata Misaki and Fushimi Saruhiko as we dive into Yata's life with Chromesthesia - a specific form of Synesthesia wherein a person can <i>hear</i> colors. Many of these stories will come from prompts and questions that you, the readers, have!</p><p>Warning: Expect out-of-character(ness), domestic fluff, and scattered bits of information regarding Synesthesia and possibly computer programming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stressed Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you so much for clicking on this story. I've had a lot of questions tossed at me regarding Synesthesia, and after reading and answering most (if not all) of the comments in _Variegated Lilac_ and _Hidden Colors_ , I've decided that hey, why not create short stories revolving around Misaki with Chromesthesia?  
> So here I am, here _we are ___, about to dive into the very first prompt I was given.  
>  I hope everyone continues to support this version of Misaki, even though he's not the brash little ball of sunshine we all grew to know him as.
> 
> Before we get started, though, I compiled a list of colors and tones-as-emotions that have been encountered in _Hidden Colors_ , to serve as a guide throughout the series. This is focused solely on Saruhiko's colors, the reason being that Misaki actually can't see the color of his own voice. This list will be attached to every chapter, along with any updated colors - should there be any new ones.  
> Green - Discontent  
> Purple - Content, Happy  
> Grey - Irritation  
> Pink - Love, Affection  
> Dark Cyan - Agitation  
> Brown - This isn't actually really a tone, it's more of a color that Misaki connected to his memories of his bullied days.
> 
>  
> 
> _Chapter Summary:_  
>  Prompt from Misa-chan: _Saru gets angry, how you think misaki would react to saru's angry color?_  
>  Misaki's never seen an extremely agitated Saruhiko before, and doesn't know how to handle it other than to push him away until the color ceases to exist.

Misaki frowned at the three plates of food that had been set on their small coffee table in the living room.

“Saru, eat.” Misaki said, eyeing the toast from that morning. “You’ll be able to work faster if you do.”

“Later,” came Saruhiko’s mumbled reply. There was a tinge of green, causing Misaki to step back with a sigh.

“Saru, it’s nine in the _evening_. You’ve been working on that since _last_ _night_. You need to eat before you collapse or something.”

“Later, Misaki.”

“Saru –“

“Quiet!” Saruhiko clicked his tongue, tapping away at the laptop in front of him. “I’ll eat later, Misaki.”

The green. The _unhappy_ green.

Misaki’s eyes widened at the sight of it, but didn’t speak as he trudged away towards their bedroom. They had tossed out their previous bunk bed and replaced it with a soft queen-sized bed, which took up a lot of space in the room, but that was fine. Saruhiko’s drawer - the one that was made in the wall – hasn’t been removed yet, and Misaki had decided to keep his folder full of ugly colors up there along with some other trivial things – a knife, extra money, and a photograph of them.

He flopped down onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, the green never leaving his mind. Sure, Misaki had seen Saruhiko’s green many times before, but the green he saw today seemed darker, almost _scarier_ than normal.

Misaki looked down at his little ‘art corner’, which was the corner next to the window in their room. His coloring materials were scattered all over the floor around it because Misaki always forgot to clean up after finish a drawing. His sketchbooks were stacked in one tall tower, threatening to topple over any moment.

 _They’ll probably fall over if I try to put my next one on top._ He mused as he imagined the tower falling over and scattering his drawings all over the place. His current sketchbook, which had a few pages left to fill in, was lying open on the floor with a recent drawing of Saruhiko’s smile staring back at him.

_Those are happy drawings, though._

The redhead was more than worried about Saruhiko right now. He had recently accepted an assignment with a really early due date, which had forced him to sacrifice sleep in order to fulfill the (still not finished) job. He hasn’t eaten in a little over twenty-four hours, either, which was the biggest cause of Misaki’s stress that moment. Misaki had tried to give him plates of food while he was working, but he hadn’t touched _any_ of them.

Saruhiko’s quick tapping was the only sound in the apartment. It was a cold white color, because that’s how inanimate objects always seemed to sound like. Sometimes white, sometimes grey, and sometimes even yellow. It didn’t make sense, but Misaki accepted the colors as they were, knowing that someday he’d be able to figure it out.

Misaki heard Saruhiko pushing the plates around, but didn’t bother to check on him. He was tired from work that day, and coming home to see Saruhiko not touching his breakfast _or_ lunch only seemed to make matters worse. He already had to eat dinner alone, and that was probably one of the loneliest things he ever has to do when Saruhiko was too busy to pay any attention to anything that didn’t involve work.

Misaki waited for their wall clock to hit 9:30 before walking back out to check on his workaholic of a boyfriend, who was still tapping away at the laptop and making subtle clicking noises when things didn’t go the way he wanted them to go. He walked over to Saruhiko and sat on the couch behind him, watching as the genius quickly and skillfully spat out line after line of code that seemed like complete gibberish to Misaki. He knew better than to try to talk to Saruhiko, but after one look at the plates of food that had been placed on the floor, he couldn’t help but complain.

“Saru, why won’t you eat? That’s not even due for another three days, right? Get some rest, too. I heard that laying down for twenty minutes helps people that have to stay up for a long time function better, too.” He rambled without giving Saruhiko a chance to speak in-between sentences.

Saruhiko clicked his tongue loud enough for Misaki to understand that it was an expression that was directed at him rather than the laptop. He didn’t answer Misaki as he refreshed a website over and over again, looking at some colored text on the right side before editing more things and refreshing again.

“Did you build that?” Misaki tried again, but received nothing but silence. The website that Saruhiko was working on had a lot of purple and blue hues, which for some reason made Misaki a little happy. He peeked at the line of code Saruhiko was editing on the bottom right of the screen, furrowing his brow as he tried to make sense of it. “Console log Misaki?” He wondered out loud, wracking his brain for some knowledge of that. Saruhiko had tried to teach him programming years ago, but stopped after he started accepted heavy (high paying) job offers.

He gave up trying to remember what that statement meant, but he could feel the tenseness in the atmosphere as Saruhiko seemed to get more and more annoyed with something on the screen. He had started muttering strings of curses to himself, and after a while his movement seemed to grow more and more agitated as he pressed the keys a little harder than usual.

Misaki got up to get a granola bar from the kitchen in hopes that Saruhiko would at least eat _that_.

“Here.” Misaki murmured, tapping Saruhiko’s shoulder with the granola bar. “At least eat that.”

Saruhiko looked up at Misaki for the first time that day, pure annoyance written all over his face. “Can’t you just let me work?” He said, agitation laced in every word.

It was a dark cyan color.

Misaki’s eyes widened and he dropped the granola bar, taking a couple steps back as the color seemed to cement itself into his mind. He hasn’t _ever_ seen that color before, and it scared him. The color somehow reminded him of anger, irritation, and countless other negative emotions.

He instantly hated that color.

 _Does he hate_ me _?_ He wondered as Saruhiko stared at him.

 “I-I’ll leave you alone. I’m sorry.” Misaki sputtered before making a beeline to the bedroom and closing the door quickly, sliding down to sit in the front of it. He locked the door in fear of having to see that color leave Saruhiko’s lips once again. He was hugging his knees and resting his forehead on it, trying desperately to will the cyan away, away, _away_. He had the urge to start clawing at his skin, but he resisted it, resisted succumbing to the pain that would come from it.

Soft footsteps and a quiet knock on the door threw Misaki out of his thoughts. “Misaki.” Saruhiko called out quietly, apologetically. “Misaki, I didn’t mean to yell at you like that.”

He heard hints of pink but paid no mind to it.

“Go away.” Misaki mumbled, barely loud enough to reach Saruhiko’s ears. “Finish your work.”

Saruhiko had tried jiggling the doorknob, and once he realized it was locked he sighed and sat himself in front of the door with his back leaning against it. “Misaki, I’m sorry.”

“Go finish your work.”

“I’ll do it later.”

“Just finish it!” Misaki yelled, frustration growing in the pit of his stomach. “Finish it so I don’t have to deal with this anymore!”

“With what?”

“That color! Make it go away; finish it so it’ll go away!”

Saruhiko clicked his tongue. “Not until I know you’re okay.”

“I _am_ okay.”

“Not.”

“Am so!”

“You’re mad.”

“Not!”

“Then why are you yelling at me?”

Misaki’s breath hitched as he realized that indeed, he _had_ been yelling at Saruhiko.

“… I’m sorry.” Misaki mumbled, hugging his knees even tighter. “Just finish it, please.”

“Let me in first.”

“Why?”

“I want to see you.”

“No… go away,” Misaki pleaded, “please.”

A barely audible sigh and Misaki suddenly found himself alone. Saruhiko had returned to his laptop, judging by the incessant tapping noises coming from the other side of the door.

Misaki sat there a little while longer before unlocking the door and crawling under the bedsheets. He was suddenly hyperaware of the empty space that usually held Saruhiko’s warmth.

"Goodnight, Saru," he mumbled before closing his eyes.

In the morning, he woke up and found the bed empty. The tapping sounds from the day before could still be heard from the living room, telling him that Saruhiko hadn’t gone to sleep - again.

Anger welled in his throat, but instead of stomping outside and yelling at Saruhiko, he instead got out of bed and grabbed the open sketchbook from the floor. He turned to an empty page, retrieved all the necessary colors from the pile of colored pencils, and began to draw the first thing he remembered that morning.

 

  **_______**

 

It was a little past lunchtime when Saruhiko finally finished his assignment and set it up for live testing. He was tired and starving, but before sleeping or eating he needed to check on Misaki.

When he walked into the bedroom, though, he found Misaki asleep on the floor with a new drawing to him. Curiously, he picked up the drawing and frowned at the image before him. He had drawn a portrait of Saruhiko, but it was angrily scribbled out with cyan colors that Saruhiko hadn’t once seen in his drawings.

“Misaki…” he murmured, suddenly realizing that _that_ was the color that Misaki was freaking out over last night.

“Nnn?” Misaki blinked his eyes slowly, making Saruhiko direct his attention to him. “Saru?”

“I’m done.” Saruhiko said, crouching next to the sleepy figure and placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Misaki.”

He looked up at Saruhiko blearily before smiling softly. “It’s purple again…”

“Because I can spend time with Misaki again, that’s why.” Saruhiko smiled. “Let’s go eat now.”

“Okay,” Misaki mumbled before sitting up slowly. Saruhiko helped Misaki stand, and together they made their way to the kitchen to get their food prepared.

“What should we eat?” Misaki asked while yawning. He had the frying pan out and started humming softly to himself as he poked through the refrigerator for inspiration.

“… Pancakes.” They said in unison as Misaki pulled out the milk. They looked at each other for a brief moment before laughing.

“Glad to see you’re back.” Misaki said, smiling.

Saruhiko returned the smile. “Glad to _be_ back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a nutshell: Misaki would push the source of the angry color away. 
> 
> Tiny note: The line of code Misaki was looking at was 'console.log("Misaki");', which is used in JavaScript. When a function reaches this line of code it will write out whatever's in the quotation marks to indicate that the program was able to reach that line. It's used to help debug programs when things go wrong, though usually instead of names like "Misaki", it'd tell you more useful notes to the programmer. Though who am I to say that, since my console logs are things like "Damn son" and "Woo you made it now fix the other thing". XD
> 
> Thanks for reading! And thank you to the Twitter and Tumblr, as well as the Ao3 Communities for the wonderful conversations regarding this! Please feel free to ask any questions or give me story prompts!


	2. Stomach Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (This ended up becoming a lot more of a drabble than a story, sorry!)  
> Ichi: How do you think saru would react if he saw someone bullying misaki in the present, assuming he know about misaki's past?
> 
> I'm putting most of the story in Saru's POV, so there isn't much on colors. Misaki mentions a few colors in the end, though. I'm also considering posting this with the POVs switched (as a later chapter, maybe) as well, so that the ending makes a little more sense...  
> Green - Discontent  
> Blue - Mellow  
> Pink - Love, Affection

Misaki was excellent at expressing his feelings in his drawings.

After all, it was the reason why his drawings were so _charming._ Some parents from the daycare would take one look at how art and always compliment on the way the drawings made them _feel_ something. Misaki was a great artist, and he had the potential to go much farther if he made the effort to do so.

Lately, though, they often remarked that there was something unsettling in the way the more recent ones were colored.

 _“There’s something…_ sullen _about this drawing.”_  
  
Saruhiko should have noticed it too, now that Misaki’s brown pencils had reached well past half their original length; he should have also noticed how Misaki’s always been a little late in coming home from his job, considering Misaki never went out with his co-workers without telling Saruhiko. Misaki’s recap of his day with the kids wasn’t as cheerful as it used to be, but Saruhiko had always been too busy with his newest assignment to notice the subtle changes in Misaki’s demeanor. When Misaki made it home, he’d always busy himself with cooking, cleaning, or doing the laundry before going off to his side of the couch and drawing what was on his mind, making comments here and there about random things while Saruhiko typed away at his laptop on the other side of the couch. They would occasionally glance at whatever the other was working on, but somehow Saruhiko never caught on to the subtle details or Misaki's drawings.

  
It had been like that for two weeks now.  
  
He should have noticed how Misaki had switched from random drawings that told of his day to purely landscape drawings, usually filled with brown, earthy colors. One day it was a mountainside, another day it was a farm. Then came the drawing of cocoa beans and avocados. It was totally random each and every day, but the brown _always_ remained. Misaki would absentmindedly chatter about the daycare students as he drew, but the cheerfulness in his voice seemed off, forced even. Saruhiko waved it off as fatigue after noticing that Misaki hadn’t been able to sleep very well recently.

It wasn’t until the third week that Saruhiko noticed the bruises.

Misaki never minded changing clothes in front of Saruhiko, so it wasn’t unnatural for Saruhiko to walk into their bedroom without thinking to ask if he was still changing.

It wasn’t until he opened the door and _looked_ at Misaki that he noticed the dark patches dotting his stomach.

His mind was frazzled, and he couldn’t think of anything to do except lightly shove the smaller one onto the bed and straddle him. It was probably ( _really_ ) a stupid thing to do considering he wasn’t sure if there were bruises on his legs as well, but with the way Misaki would thrash around when he was surprised, it was the only thing he _thought_ to do. As expected, Misaki started to wiggle free of Saruhiko's hold, and was failing miserably at it.

“Get off of me!” Came Misaki’s muffled reaction. His head and arms were still caught in the shirt he was trying to remove, leaving him practically blind to whatever Saruhiko was doing - which wasn't much anything at that moment. “Saru, get off!”

“No.” He replied plainly, staring at Misaki’s stomach. He wasn’t aware of any issues Misaki was going through. At all. He seemed perfectly fine the past couple of weeks, but then again…

_I wasn’t paying any attention to him, was I?_

He wanted to kick himself for getting too immersed in his new assignment. It wasn’t even an _urgent_ one, yet he was so bent on getting it _done_ as soon as possible that he just… forgot. Again.

He sighed, unsure if it was directed towards Misaki or himself. “Misaki, what happened?”

Misaki’s entire body froze for what seemed like an eternity before he practically went limp. “… They found me.”

It was Saruhiko’s turn to freeze momentarily. _“Who_ found you?”

“Them.” It came out as a mumble, but the words seemed to hang heavily in the air.

Saruhiko started tracing light patterns onto Misaki’s belly, careful to curve around each of the bruises. He didn’t know who Misaki was talking about, and he didn’t know how to help him. Who were they? Assassins? Debt Collectors? Clowns? It was frustrating, not knowing what was on Misaki's mind at that exact second - but he didn’t let it show.

Misaki pulled the rest of the shirt up and off of himself before smiling weakly at Saruhiko. “I’m okay, Saru.”

 _No, you’re not!_ He wanted to yell at Misaki for so much as _letting_ this happen, but he didn’t want to make matters worse than it already was. He gently pushed himself off of Misaki and sat next to him, watching carefully as Misaki sat himself up. His hair was all over the place again, reminding Saruhiko of a wildflower he once say Misaki draw.

“Really Saru, I’m okay.” He smiled at Saruhiko again. Misaki was a strong person, but Saruhiko knew he wasn’t feeling that way right now. “It’s just some… bullies… from before. That’s all.”

His skin prickled at the word. _Bullies?_

“I told you before, right?” Misaki chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood, but all Saruhiko saw in him was bitterness. “And you used to freak out all the time when I drew brown things…”

Saruhiko sighed again, his lips settling in a frown. He had a feeling that the bullies weren’t only issue, but that was a discussion for a later time.

“But I’m okay, really. It’s not like I see them every day. Just… most,” Misaki’s voice trailed off into a whisper as he looked away, and Saruhiko couldn’t stand it anymore.

He hated when Misaki was like this.

 _I’m okay_ , he always says despite the pain in his eyes.

 _Don’t worry_ , he always says if Saruhiko offered to help.

It made Saruhiko feel all the more useless when Misaki wouldn’t allow him to help. They’ve been friends for _years,_ and now they’re technically _boyfriends_ , but he still feels the wall Misaki built around himself. Most days he could easily climb over it, and other days he would have to coax him into lowering the gates to his castle.

He absentmindedly tossed whatever shirt was on the floor towards Misaki so that he could put it on. The temperature in the room was always cold, and the last thing Saruhiko needed was an upset _and_ sick Misaki.

“… Can you at least tell me about it?” Saruhiko asked tentatively, reaching out to intertwine their fingers after Misaki had pulled the shirt on.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to remember them.”

“Nothing’s going to get better if you don’t try to fix the problem.”

“Nothing’s wrong, though!” Misaki’s hand was trembling under Saruhiko’s.

“Stop lying.” Saruhiko deadpanned. “It’s not going to make you feel any better.”

“Why do you care?” Misaki’s voice turned icy, making the air feel twice as cold as it already was.

Saruhiko was used to Misaki’s mood swings by now; he knew all along that Misaki was someone that wasn’t afraid of wearing their heart on their sleeve. If he was upset, you knew he was upset, and Misaki's moods changed quite often due to his knack of reading the situation. He still remembered when he was the quiet, timid seatmate he didn’t want to care about... Looking back at how much Misaki had opened up to people since then, though, Saruhiko was glad that he had been able to open Misaki’s eyes and see a better future.

And at the same time, Misaki opened up Saruhiko’s eyes, turning him away from the vision of a cruel, hopeless future and forcing him to look forwards towards a much brighter one.

But now, in times like these, it feels like Misaki’s turning away, turning back to his own cruel past and no longer accepting the bright future he helped carve for the both of them.

“Misaki,” Saruhiko murmured, letting go of Misaki’s hand and pulling him down by the arm so that they were lying next to each other. He lay facing Misaki, who in turned stared at the ceiling with everything _but_ positivity in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, now? Do you even _know_ what you did wrong?” Misaki’s words stung Saruhiko, as if a needle had begun to dig into his heart. His eyes softened a moment after Saruhiko didn’t respond. “No, it’s my fault. Never mind, I’m sorry,” he sighed heavily. “You got so busy again that I thought it would be better if I didn’t bother you. Then… they started appearing… and calling me names again…” his voice was shaking as he approached the end of the sentence.

Saruhiko pushed the fabric of Misaki’s shirt above his stomach up so that he could go back to tracing patterns on it. “Where did these come from, then?”

“I fought back because they started talking shit about _you_ ,” Misaki turned his head to look at Saruhiko, his eyes hinting at anger. “I didn’t care about being made fun of, but when they started talking about _you_ , I couldn’t help but get really mad, so I swung my bag at them and started to fight… but there were three of them so it was a stupid thing to do, really.” Misaki laughed shakily.

Saruhiko’s frown deepened and he sat up, hand never leaving Misaki’s stomach. Slowly, _slowly_ , he leaned down and began to plant the softest of kisses on each and every bruise, feeling Misaki’s entire body tense with every peck.

“Saru… what?” Misaki was blushing red, his hands tenderly grasping the hem of his shirt. He was tugging it down, but Saruhiko was too strong, keeping it up and over his stomach with ease as he continued showering Misaki with kisses.

“Saru, stop!” Misaki was squirming under Saruhiko. It was extremely embarrassing, to say the least - mostly because Misaki didn't understand what was going through Saruhiko's mind at the moment. It took another few feather-light kisses before Saruhiko finally let go of Misaki and sat next to him. “What was that about?” His face was still red as he sat up and leaned close to Saruhiko, as if trying to read his mind. “Are you okay?”

“I’m upset.” Saruhiko murmured, staring at his knees. A moment of silence passed by before he spoke again. “We should be protecting each other, right?”

“Well, yeah…” Misaki thought for a few seconds then slowly moved to straddle Saruhiko, burying his face in the junction between Saruhiko’s neck and shoulder. “But it’s okay. We’re people, right? So we’re busy with our own things,” he sighed. “I don't want to depend on you for _everything_ , so I kept quiet even though I knew you should've known about it. So.... sorry... And stop being so green, Saru…”

Saruhiko’s arms wrapped around Misaki lazily. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “But I’m going to pick you up and drop you off at the daycare from now on.”

“What? Why?” Misaki lifted his head to look at Saruhiko.

"Unless you'll let me kick their asses into next season for you."

"Stupid, you'll get arrested. Let me do it instead!"

"It'll be boring without you around the house, though."

"Same goes for me if  _you're_ arrested!" Misaki huffed, but he was smiling.

"Just... let me help a little. So they can’t hurt us anymore.” Saruhiko smiled back at his boyfriend.

Misaki blinked a few times in bewilderment before laughing. “Idiot, we don’t even have a _car_.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t walk with you.”

“But you _hate_ going outside.”

“I hate seeing you so sad all the time even more, idiot.”

“Stupid.” Misaki smiled his thousand-watt smile before giving Saruhiko a peck on the lips. “I wanna make fruit tarts today.”

“Why?”

“Because your voice reminds me of fruit tarts right now.”

 

  **_______**

 

Of course, Saruhiko didn’t understand what Misaki meant when he said that his voice reminded him of fruit tarts. He didn’t get to see how his voice drifted between various hues of greens, blues, and pinks during the time that they were talking. They reminded him of springtime and cherry blossoms - of days when they’d ditch school to walk around the nearby park and eat crepes all day.

Misaki hopped off of Saruhiko and waltzed over to the kitchen, giddy over the feeling of knowing how much Saruhiko wanted to protect him despite the obvious effort it’d take to do so. It really wasn’t a big issue to Misaki, but hearing them talk about how much of a freak Saruhiko is  _hurt_. He'd called them some pretty harsh names during those fights, too, but they deserved every single one of them. They were, as Misaki thinks, _selfish immature bastards that deserve to fucking die_.

He never had the courage to really call or tell them that, though, so he settled with names like shithead and bastard instead. 

He rummaged through the refrigerator, glad that he had taken it upon himself to refill it with anything – and more – that he had wanted to buy. Saruhiko was back at his laptop, obviously distracted by the sudden change in mood. The lazy white typing of the keyboard dotted his mind along with the sounds the kitchen utensils made as he prepared the tart base, showering his thoughts with snow.

Tart bases took forever to make, so while he prepared the treat he also prepared a small dinner. Misaki was feeling fairly lazy too, but he managed to summon enough effort to make rice and omelets.

“Breakfast for dinner?” Saruhiko raised his eyebrows as he turned to look at what Misaki was up to.

“Why not?” Misaki hummed as he set the pans on the stove. The tart bases were already in the oven, and by the time they were finished baking he’d be done cooking the omelets, too. He heard Saruhiko sigh, and he could imagine a ghost of a smile in it as he turned back to the laptop and continued his work.

In no time dinner was finished, and as Saruhiko prepared to stop work for the night Misaki went ahead and finished putting the cream inside the tart base before grabbing a bowl of fruits and taking it, along with the tart bases, to the table.

“Aren’t you going to put the fruit _in_ the tart?” Saruhiko questioned, taking his seat on the table.

“Put your own on.” Misaki muttered. “Isn’t that obvious with the way I set it up?”

Saruhiko clicked his tongue, but didn’t make a comment as they started silently digging into their food. The silence wasn’t an awkward one, no; it was more of a silence that had a warm atmosphere to it.

The tarts were delicious, to Saruhiko’s surprise, and Misaki laughed lightly as he watched Saruhiko make tart after tart to eat.

“I thought you didn’t like fruits all that much?”

“Shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in short, Saru'd flip out a bit and think a lot about the situation while try to make Misaki feel a little better. But he's gotta protect Misaki too so he comes up with a good solution.  
> Side note: I'm going to try to slowly push Misaki to be more IC, so his personality might change a little as I write! ^^;


End file.
